Measuring Up
A Memoir of Fathers and Sons
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Narrated by:
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Dan Robson
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By:
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Dan Robson
About this listen
SHORTLISTED for the 2022 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
“Dan Robson’s book is a heart-wrenching portrait of grief. Anyone who has lost a parent will recognize it, know it intimately as you roll through the stages and finally come to the realization that a parent’s ultimate gift to a child is showing them how to live.”—Tanya Talaga, bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers
A tender memoir of fathers and sons, love and loss, and learning to fill boots a size too big.
Dan Robson’s father is a builder, a fixer. A man whose high-school education is enough not only to provide for his family, but to build a successful business. Rick Robson holds things up. When he dies, nothing in his son’s world feels steady anymore. In a very real sense, the home his father had built is suddenly fragile. Without its natural caretaker, the house will fall to pieces—and his family shows all the same signs of crumbling.
Dan is hit especially hard. He knows he is not the man his father was. Dan never learned the blue-collar skills he admired, because his father wanted him to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. Now that his father is gone, the acknowledgment of his sacrifices and the sheer longing to be close to him again in some way draw Dan to the tools that lie unused in the garage. So begins Dan’s year of learning the skills his father’s hands had long mastered, and trying to fill the steel-toe boots left behind. Measuring Up is the story of that journey.
Robson picks up where his father left off, working on the house and the truck, as much for the family as for himself. In much the same way that Michael Pollan comes to know his house inside-out in A Place of My Own, Robson learns the mysteries and proud satisfaction of plumbing, carpentry, wiring, and drywalling, and comes to understand how our homes are built. He also comes to see how his home was built by his father, uncovering more than one heartbreaking reminder of the kind of man his father was, and what he meant to his family.
Tender and unflinching, Measuring Up is a story of love, mourning, and what it means to use your calloused hands to make the world around you a better place to live.
©2021 Dan Robson (P)2021 Penguin Random House CanadaListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
SHORTLISTED for the 2022 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
“A beautiful, clear-eyed elegy to families. How the foundation is laid, how the structure is crafted, and, eventually, how all of us have to manage its collapse. Dan Robson’s memoir is about sons and fathers. More than that, it’s about the hard road that leads from being one to becoming the other.” —Cathal Kelly, author of Boy Wonders
“Dan Robson’s book is a heart-wrenching portrait of grief. Anyone who has lost a parent will recognize it, know it intimately as you roll through the stages and finally come to the realization that a parent’s ultimate gift to a child is showing them how to live.” —Tanya Talaga, bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers
“Dan Robson skillfully constructs a monument to the legacy of his craftsman father. It is a testament to the unbreakable bond between every father and son. It inspires each of us to a straighter plumb, a truer square, and a higher level.” —Murray Howe, bestselling author of Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father
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Growing Things and Other Stories
- By: Paul Tremblay
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Graham Halstead, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A chilling collection of psychological suspense and literary horror from the multiple award-winning author of the national best seller The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts. A masterful anthology featuring 19 pieces of short fiction, Growing Things and Other Stories is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination.
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Paul Tremblay is totally nuts.
- By Gary & Jay on 07-07-19
By: Paul Tremblay
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I'll Be There
- By: Holly Goldberg Sloan
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Emily Bell believes in destiny. To her, being forced to sing a solo in the church choir - despite her average voice - is fate: because it's while she's singing that she first sees Sam. At first sight they are connected. Sam Border wishes he could escape, but there's nowhere for him to run. He and his little brother, Riddle, have spent their entire lives constantly uprooted by their unstable father. As Sam and Riddle are welcomed into the Bells' lives, they witness the warmth and protection of a family for the first time.
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Needs to be a film!
- By TreasureHunter on 06-25-16
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Surrender Bay
- A Nantucket Love Story, Book 1
- By: Denise Hunter
- Narrated by: Kathryn Lynhurst
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Samantha Owens' estranged stepfather has died, leaving her his cottage in Nantucket - a place she fled years ago, never planning to return. As a single mom, Samantha can't afford to pass up a financial windfall like oceanfront property. So she travels home to fix up the house and sell it...never suspecting that Landon Reed still lives two doors down. As their long-dormant romance begins to bud again, Samantha must face a past that separated her from the God of her childhood. And she must tell Landon why she fled the island in the first place - a secret that could tear them apart.
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Disappointing
- By Cody Wheeler on 04-28-20
By: Denise Hunter
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Down the Rabbit Hole
- An Echo Falls Mystery
- By: Peter Abrahams
- Narrated by: Mandy Siegfried
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Echo Falls. Home of a thousand secrets, where Ingrid Levin-Hill, super sleuth, never knows what will happen next.
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Down the Rabbit Hole (Unabridged)
- By Susan L. Jeffres on 05-22-05
By: Peter Abrahams
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House Lessons
- Renovating a Life
- By: Erica Bauermeister
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In this mesmerizing memoir-in-essays, New York Times best-selling author Erica Bauermeister renovates a trash-filled house in eccentric Port Townsend, Washington, and in the process takes listeners on a journey to discover the ways our spaces subliminally affect us. A personal, accessible, and literary exploration of the psychology of architecture, this book is designed for homeowners, remodelers, and those who are simply curious about how our built environments shape who we become.
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Wonderful book for anyone home shopping
- By ERICK on 09-04-20
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The Ride of Our Lives
- Roadside Lessons of an American Family
- By: Mike Leonard
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At 87, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of 60 years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar opposite - pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son, Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a month?
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Hilarious!!!
- By TurtlesRMe on 03-06-07
By: Mike Leonard
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What Happens Next
- By: Christina Suzann Nelson
- Narrated by: Rebecca Quinn Robertson
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Popular podcaster and ex-reporter Faith Byrne has made a name for herself telling stories of greatness after tragedy—but her real life does not mirror the stories she tells. When she's asked to spotlight her childhood best friend's missing person case on her podcast, she uncovers desperate secrets and must face the truth before she can move forward.
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Enjoyed This!
- By Freida Keith on 05-14-23
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After the Eclipse
- A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her ultimate mission to know the woman who gave her life.
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True crime memoir
- By Julie on 11-03-17
By: Sarah Perry
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Just Fly Away
- By: Andrew McCarthy
- Narrated by: Suzy Jackson
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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A debut novel about one girl's discovery of family secrets, first love, the limits of forgiveness, and finding one's way in the world, written with wisdom and sympathy by the best-selling memoirist, actor, and director. When 15-year-old Lucy Willows discovers that her father has a child from a brief affair, an eight-year-old boy named Thomas who lives in her own suburban New Jersey town, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her family and her life.
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none
- By Rick on 04-06-17
By: Andrew McCarthy
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Lone Stars
- By: Justin Deabler
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.
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Read for bookclub but fell in Love
- By Ericka Lawson on 09-11-22
By: Justin Deabler
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The Girl in the White Van
- By: April Henry
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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When Savannah disappears soon after arguing with her mom's boyfriend, everyone assumes she's run away. The truth is much worse. She's been kidnapped by a man in a white van who locks her in an old trailer home, far from prying eyes. And worse yet, Savannah's not alone: 10 months earlier, Jenny met the same fate and nearly died trying to escape. Now as the two girls wonder if he will hold them captive forever or kill them, they must join forces to break out - even if it means they die trying.
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good young adult thriller
- By Taylor Edwards on 06-25-24
By: April Henry
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The Free
- A Novel (P.S.)
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Willy Vlautin
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In his heartbreaking yet hopeful fourth novel, award-winning author Willy Vlautin demonstrates his extraordinary talent for illuminating the disquiet of modern American life, captured in the experiences of three memorable characters looking for meaning in distressing times. Severely wounded in the Iraq war, Leroy Kervin has lived in a group home for eight years. Frustrated by the simplest daily routines, he finds his existence has become unbearable.
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Free Fallin', Brilliantly
- By W Perry Hall on 03-11-14
By: Willy Vlautin
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I Am Not Who You Think I Am
- By: Eric Rickstad
- Narrated by: Steven Weber
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Wayland Maynard is just eight years old when he sees his father kill himself, finds a note that reads I am not who you think I am, and is left reeling with grief and shock. Who was his father if not the loving man Wayland knew? Terrified, Wayland keeps the note a secret, but his reasons for being afraid are just beginning.
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Dear Steven Weber,
- By Julie Ann on 10-07-21
By: Eric Rickstad
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Jack: Secret Histories
- Young Repairman Jack Series 1
- By: F. Paul Wilson
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever come across a situation that simply wasn't right - where someone was getting the dirty end of the stick and you wished you could make things right but didn't know how? Fourteen-year-old Jack knows how. Or rather he's learning how. He's discovering that he has a knack for fixing things. Not bikes or toys or appliances - situations...It all starts when Jack and his best friends, Weezy and Eddie, discover a rotting corpse - the victim of ritual murder - in the fabled New Jersey Pine Barrens. Beside the body is an ancient artifact carved with strange designs.
By: F. Paul Wilson
What listeners say about Measuring Up
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Randall Y
- 05-24-21
Men and their Sons...
I was in tears a few times. The book touched my heart and soul. This relationship plays out in its many places but mostly in our memories for ever.
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- Matt Walker
- 07-05-21
Great listen for anyone (especially a son or dad)
I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect when listening to this book, but I couldn’t stop listening. I found myself taking the long way home and spending a few more minutes in the driveway just so I could keep on listening.
I love that the book is narrated by the author. It feels like the true emotions of what was originally being penned down is coming right through the speakers.
I generally find it difficult to express how I feel about any relationship, especially the one with my father (because there is nothing else that compares). The author is able to describe the different stages of the relationship along the years from a child, adolescent, adult and then finally at the end as a father himself.
Great read. I highly recommend
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